Joyce Street
★★★
Tied Down
NUMERO GROUP. CD/DL/LP
The 1970s housewife who dreamt of country stardom.
Still a teenager when she stepped off the bus in LA from her native Mississippi, the then-Joyce Spence wanted to be the new Bobbie Gentry. Instead, she married and became a mom who occasionally recorded some of her songs, but always for tiny labels such as Hollywood’s Reena, or Sonobeat in Austin. Just like Bobbie she wrote her own songs, but her voice had more in common with Loretta Lynn, a pure country warble that didn’t have quite enough ‘pop’ in it for wider success. It’s a shame bigger labels didn’t pick up the singles and demos collected on Tied Down, because when she hits a countrypolitan sweet spot on Life Ain’t Worth Livin’ (If I Can’t Have You), Woman Do Something Nice, Mississippi Moonshine and the ever-so-slightly disenchanted California You’re Slippin’, those girlish dreams could have just as easily come true.